Arab Islamic Republic
proposed unification of Tunisia and Libya in 1974, agreed upon by Gaddafi and Bourguiba, but never implemented
The Arab Islamic Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية الإسلامية, romanized: al-Jumhūriyya al-ʿArabiyyah al-Islāmiyya) was a proposed unification of Tunisia and Libya in 1974, agreed upon by Libyan head of state Muammar Gaddafi and Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba. Additional countries—Morocco and Algeria—were later included in the proposal, which was never implemented.
With the death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in September 1970, Muammar Gaddafi sought to establish himself as the figurehead of Pan-Arabism. After a failed attempt at rapprochement between his country and Egypt, he turned to Tunisia. In December 1972, President Bourguiba expressed his disagreement with a proposed union. But on January 12, 1974, the two presidents, meeting on the Mediterranean island of Djerba, agreed on an agreement providing for a union of their countries within an Arab Islamic Republic (AIR), which would have only one constitution, one army, and one flag.
Regional context
The attempted merger between Tunisia and Libya took place in a historical and regional context. Maghrebi regional politics played a role embedded into the constitutions of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria is the ideal of Maghrebi unity, however contradicting this ideal is the competing interests of Morocco and Algeria, the region's two major powers. According to Tunisian scholar Habib Slim, "if there were only Algeria and not Morocco, or Morocco and not Algeria, there could never have been a Maghrib. The major power would have swallowed us all up.
“Arab Islamic Republic” enters the record as proposed unification of Tunisia and Libya in 1974, agreed upon by Gaddafi and Bourguiba, but never implemented. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Arab, Islamic and Republic can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Arab Islamic Republic” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Arab, Islamic and Republic provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q623944. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1974, 1970 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arab Islamic Republic” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.